


Ben Solo - Smuggler. Husband. Survivor.

by Harrishawksuperiour



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bottom Ben Solo, Character Study, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Oral Sex, POV Ben Solo, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Smuggler Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:47:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harrishawksuperiour/pseuds/Harrishawksuperiour
Summary: Kylo Ren did terrible things and Ben Solo must live with them.He tosses and turns, often crying out helplessly in his sleep, desperate to change what he knows deep down he cannot change. It dogs him constantly and dominates every ounce of conscious thought; waking and slumbering. It is no existence for the once great Knight of Ren.Ben makes a decision. To leave and, if he can, heal.He wants normality. Banality. Domesticity. Something different. Something the complete opposite of that murdering psychopath Kylo Ren.





	1. Trauma

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Secret Life of Armitage Hux](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063049) by [Harrishawksuperiour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harrishawksuperiour/pseuds/Harrishawksuperiour). 



> I kicked this around in my head and decided to see how it went.  
> I love Armitage and he's the base for most of my fics but Ben needed a bit of love!

Ben Solo often needed to be alone.

 

Despite the busy freighter and the crew with a family mentality, he always managed to find a quiet place to reflect. Just like now. In a small, dingy room with little more than a camp bed as a highlight. But it was warm, away from everyone and he could hear himself think. The only distraction was background noise; the occasional clang of heating elements and the constant drone of the engines, either roaring or cooling.

 

Limp on the camp bed, Ben centred himself - just like Luke had taught him, what felt like a lifetime ago. He’d been a whole different person since then; been places, done things…. A lot of them he wished he hadn’t.

 

Eyes closed and breathing steady, he reached out. Not physically, not extending his arm and touching nothing, but flexing his senses like intangible fingers, reaching into the unknown. Deepening his consciousness and his inhales, he found himself on that level of oblivion that was a common ground of both sides of the Force; frequented by both the Jedi and the Sith. Not that Ben had ever been either exclusively but a product of both.

 

This…. This _place…._ It belonged to both, influenced by both and it was that that made it a dangerous place or a safe one. Like every other aspect of the Force, these two sides twisted and churned in tandem; feeding off each other and aiding each other while mutual destruction seemed inevitable but never came. Because of that…. Ben could never be sure what he would encounter here but he felt compelled to come here nonetheless; for penance or comfort.

 

 _Tehar…._ Ben flinched, his head jerking in a spasm. Nothing but screaming in his ears and nought before his eyes. Blaster fire. Stormtrooper radios cackling. The clatter of pristinely white armour.

 

He writhed on the bed but the grating of the fabric on his face had been replaced by cold, restrictive metal and the ancient springs creaking with a respirator. The sweat beading on his brow and upper lip was not from self-inflicted anxiety or stress but sheer, merciless heat.

_Jakku…. That sand-clogged shithole…._ Again, only blackness but it seemed his sight was the only sense ripped from him. The _smell_ of smoke, ash, cooking food engulfed his nose though it may well have been imagination back then. After all, he couldn’t smell very well in that helmet, not that it had mattered all that much then. He could _feel_ his cowl being tugged by the prickling night breeze as heavy boots cut through the resistance of the sand. He could _hear_ the panicked bleatings of villagers rounded up like cattle and the humming _crackle_ of a lightsaber that was unstable as he was. Hell, he could even _taste_ the stray grit on his tongue; how it got there, he couldn’t be sure even to this day.

 

 _Takodana…. Revisiting old friends, just to destroy them…_ If the other two didn’t make Ben pant and cry out, this one would. He had sensed them there….. Han and Chewie, his father and uncle. Not to mention the others; countless, nameless, faceless beings forgotten over the years and remembered in an instant when he sent squadrons to cut them down. People he had known as a child, however briefly, be them friendly to him, Han and Chewie or not. He laid waste to that castle; the one that had stood proud and served a representative from all corners of the galaxy for over a thousand years. And Maz…. Don’t get him started on Maz.

 

Ben eventually surfaced from the trance-slash-nightmare. Sweat soaked, oxygen-starved, and limbs shook numb, his surroundings began to register.

 

It was all gone. He was in his little cranny, safe and sound, to recover at his leisure and hope the experience next time would not be _quite_ as draining.

 

 _I’m starving….._ He thought and checked the chronometer on his com device. It wasn’t dinner time yet, they wouldn’t have eaten without him and if they were looking for him, Shan would have broken down every door until he found him. _Do I have time for a shower? Probably…._ But he didn’t move. Not yet. Simply twisted onto his stomach and propped himself on his elbow, chin cupped in the palm of his hand, Ben opted to recover slowly from that almost vomit-inducing reminder of the things he’d done but could never take back. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions of people whose lives he had turned upside down (or taken altogether), who he could never look in the eye and say: _I’m sorry._

 

The lightsaber was gone now. Mort took it, under Ben’s instruction and, under no circumstances, was he to give it back.

 

Come to think of it, what had he even _done_ with the saber? Sold it? Maybe. Though, Mort wasn’t very good with credits; Ben would have noticed a ridiculous purchase and a less than satisfactory answer for where the money had come from.

 

Hidden it? On the freighter? Off it? He doubted he’d hidden it on board. If Shan found it and hurt himself, Nalesse (Mort’s half-sister and Shan’s mother) would debilitate Mort in her fury without even turning the weapon on, Ben didn’t doubt that much.

 

Had he destroyed it? Maybe that wasn’t such a stretch. He could see Mort taking great pleasure in destroying the symbol of what had brought Ben so much pain. But his _fiance_ (that word still tasted sweetly strange to Ben) was also sentimental; romantic. There was no way he would resist taking a few pieces and reconstructing them into something else, however tacky.

 

One steel toe-cap boot found the floor, then the other and Ben swivelled onto his bottom. It was a severe relief for his sodden head to meet the colder durasteel panel; to tilt against it and let it cool his neck and the top of his spine.

 

 _I could sleep now…._ His conscious told itself and though it was tempting, even just a quick nap, Ben had set out his priorities.

 

_Food._

_Shower._

_Not necessarily in that order._

 

The dark-haired male curled his lips inwards and narrowed his eyes in contemplation as another alluring thought occurred. Yes, that was as good as the others and just as appealing.

 

_I wouldn’t say no to a fuck either._


	2. Mortimer Bowdane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben spills the beans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think of liberated Ben Solo as just Adam Driver.

Mortimer Bowdane was a _beautiful_ creature.

 

Before, Ben had never taken the time to ask himself: _“What am I attracted to?”_ Too busy with slaughter and repression of the masses in the name of the First Order and his master, something like that was trivial. But a shaggy, golden mane, periwinkle eyes, sun kissed skin and a set of lips for servicing the Gods seemed to tick some sort of box for Ben.

 

Mort met Ben at a similar height, and his build matched what had made Kylo Ren a physical killing machine. Minus the malice and with added gentility (seemingly mismatched with his physique), it hadn’t occurred to the Knight how much he would enjoy it until he experienced it; being held down in sexual submission, cuddled afterwards or held securely during a night terror to prevent him doing injury to himself. The well-travelled, indiscernible accent crooning comfort in his ear always helped too. _You’re a’right. You’re a’right. I’ve gotcha. Easy, easy…._

 

Even if he was immediately out of Ben’s eyeline at that very moment, it mattered not; not when those magnificent features were ironed into Ben’s psyche. That was partially Ben’s fault, with chocolate eyes shuttered to the room.

 

But mostly Mort’s, for wandering below the waist, where he knew Ben wouldn’t have the strength to lift his head to spy him.

 

 _“Fuck!”_ The near-anguished snarl spawned a full-mouthed chuckle from beyond the darkened realm of his own eyelids. Ben tried to lessen the heated pressure, lifting his hips for some bare relief and Mort, as always, accommodated him.

 

One of Ben’s scarred hands (the lightsaber tended to spark over the years, hence his eventual adoption of gloves) lowered and tangled itself in the sandy tresses. Those wonderful sounds of selfless slurping and gagging continued but the enjoyment was clearly mutual.

 

 _“Good boy…”_ Ben choked, arching his hips and driving for the back of his beloved’s throat, and Mort (who took great pride in doing so) took him flawlessly.

 

He chose to deny himself the heavenly envelopment for a moment, just a moment, to lift his pelvis and smear his weeping tip along Mort’s cheek; marking him as his own. Not that Mort needed reminding and reclaimed the object of his oral fascination without too much delay.

 

The warm encasement of his partner’s mouth receded slowly, tongue peeling along the shaft and his nostril exhales ruffling the tuft of hair that kept Ben’s nether regions toasty.

 

“Turn over, love.” Came the husk that greeted Ben each morning before he even opened his eyes. “Can’t reach ya like tha’.” So, he complied; despite the extra effort required to get his knees to cooperate from their weakness and lying on his front instead. The ex-Knight ignored the double **_clicking_** ; knowing what it was and what it meant but too immersed in the opposite of what he’d experienced earlier, Ben would take the abundance of physical touch and relish it. Even the iciness that worked its way between the cheeks of his arse.

 

_“Ahhh….! Ahhh…!”_

“Cold?”

_“You know it’s cold, Mort!”_ The blonde half of the pair, the Yang to Ben’s Ying, reshuffled on his knees for traction as he chewed on his amusement. Mort was careful; the first lubed finger would be sufficient for now, having massaged those pasty cheeks and dipping it in the appropriate, puckered hole to work him loose.

 

Ben’s head burrowed into the pillow to suffocate the whine as Mort’s middle finger gently wormed its way past the guarding sphincter muscle, opening Ben gradually for comfort.  

 

_“How did I live without this….?!”_

“I dunno, love.” Mort chimed, his delight plain as he twisted his finger and Ben squirmed accordingly. “You mightn’ve been so prone to swingin’ a lightsaber round…. Bu’ you’re makin’ up for los’ time now.”

 

Indeed, he was.

 

Ben’s fist made for his own taut, saliva-coated prick but found his hand being mercilessly swatted away by Mort’s empty one.

 

“Ah! Bold!”

 

 _“Come on!”_ Ben whinged, frustrated by the delay and wagging his hips in want. _“I need it!”_

“You’re a dirty, needy lil bitch, Ben Solo. Y’know tha’?”

 

_“Yes…!”_

Mort's initial movements were slow, no doubt intended to tease, the agonizingly leisurely thrusts of his hand into Ben’s arse complimenting the filthy rhetoric and intensifying his reactions.

 

After a moment or so, Mort replaced one with two: the middle and the index. With a shuddering breath that meant he was just about coping with the sensation; Ben folded his arms in front of him and laid his cheek against them; as a grounding for his upper body.

 

 ** _“Mort.”_** Ben snarled suddenly, the vexation and frustration becoming clear in an instant; though there hadn’t been much build up. **_“Stop piss-arsing around and fuck me!”_**

****

Mort, having sat back on the balls of his feet and withdrawing his sopping fingers for fear of losing them, tilted that shaggy head and quirked a sandy eyebrow at his beloved’s utter aggravation. One would think though, that knowing Ben the way he did and reading him as well as he could, that Mort would have just gotten on with it. But when did Mort ever miss the opportunity for a witty remark? Even at his own peril?

 

“And wha’ do I get outta it?” The look of pure thunder over his shoulder and merciless clench of the sheets in his fist was probably Ben’s best effort at restraint. And Mort knew it. “Dump my load. Right.”

 

To that end, Ben re-settled himself in the flesh of his forearms while the _jingling_ of Mort’s belt and the **thud** of his heavy cargo pants hitting the floor lulled him back into the embrace of expectant sedation.

 

The unity and filling feeling of oneness pulled a guttural moan from Ben’s vocal cords as he took throbbing inch after throbbing inch. It was enough to undo the starvation of touch, sight, smell and sound and plummet his stress levels until he was little more than a whining mess.

 

* * *

 

 

“So… Wha’ was up your hole?” Mort, who didn’t see the irony of the question, voiced it out of concern; complete with a post-coital kiss to his fiancé’s dark, raggedy head. Ben, barely awake, inclined said head to receive it and jostled closer among the tousled sheets to support himself against Mort’s tattooed chest. Needless to say, the ever-affectionate smuggler swallowed him to his torso without complaint or protest, despite the interrogation.

 

“Up until a few minutes ago: You.”

 

“Oi. The wisecracks are my bag. Seriously though, you’ve been mopin’ since yesterday. What’s goin’ on?”

 

If the former Kylo Ren thought he could get away with pretending to drift in blissful satisfaction and fulfilment, he needed to re-evaluate who he was speaking to. Mort, who lived with the erratic and often aggressive Nalesse Du Sade, had reading moods down to a tee. Granted, he got away with a lot more with Ben than he did with his sister.

 

“C’mon. Out with it. Is it your mam?”

 

 _Fuck._ Ben thought, managing to disguise his sigh as a particularly relaxed exhale. _That was quick. Might as well get it over with._

“I’m seeing her tomorrow. For the first time in… I dunno how long. I keep flip-flopping in my mind if I should go, or cancel, go, or just not turn up.”

 

“Want me to go with ya?” Trust Mort, the ever-benevolent Mort who despised seeing his partner in such a dire condition, to want to make the inevitable as painless as possible.

 

“Nah. She likes you though. Said that you’ve balls enough to walk onto a heavily manned Resistance airstrip with a fake bomb strapped to your chest. Said it was the kinda shit my dad would’a done.” The blonde smiled at the memory, and while Ben was adamant to endure the meeting alone, Mort would like the chance to see his soon-to-be mother in law again; minus being in a stun-addled stupor, strapped to an interrogation chair.

“I was going to ask Nalesse if I could borrow Shan and bring him with me.”

 

“I don’t think that’d be an issue. Why Shan though? I said I’d go with ya.”

 

“I’m meeting her at Dex’s.” Ben had thought this through carefully. While the opportunity to see his mother and lay things out with her was golden and he w _anted_ to do it, he didn’t trust himself not to turn tail and run at the last second. “If Shan knows we’re going to Dex’s, there’s no way I’ll be able to drag him out till he’s had his chicken bites-“

 

“Stubborn little bollix. Like his mam.”

 

“You wouldn’t change that _stubborn little bollix_ for the galaxy.”

 

“No. And I’ll fuckin’ fight anyone tha’ tries. Go on.”

 

“So, if I have Shan, I won’t be able to run. He’ll keep me calm and level-“

 

“Like a teddy bear.”

 

“Yeah. And if he’s there, we’ll have something to focus on if things get quiet. He’ll break the ice.”

 

“Keep an eye on ‘im, or tha’s not all he’ll break.” A fair warning.

 

Mort shimmied down in the bed, effortlessly taking Ben with him; maybe there was time for a nap before dinner time, though it might have been advisable for pyjama pants at the very least should Shan come looking for his uncles to fetch them for dinner.

 

“You sound like you’ve it all planned so.”

 

“Mmm…”

 

“Well, look, I’ll be nearby with the shuttle. If ye need a quick exit, com me. If not, pick me up a slider and I’ll see ye after.”

 

“I want this to go well, Mort.”

 

“I know you do, love. And I want it to go well for ya. But, promise me ya won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see Mort's expedition to a Resistance base with a fake bomb, click here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063049/chapters/38309519

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
